by no means naturally nervous, and the very few glasses of Lafitte
which I had sipped served to embolden me no little, so that I felt
nothing of trepidation, but merely uplifted my eyes with a leisurely
movement, and looked carefully around the room for the intruder. I
could not, however, perceive any one at all.

"Humph!" resumed the voice, as I continued my survey, "you mus
pe so dronk as de pig, den, for not zee me as I zit here at your
zide."

Hereupon I bethought me of looking immediately before my nose,
and there, sure enough, confronting me at the table sat a personage
nondescript, although not altogether indescribable. His body was a
wine-pipe, or a rum-puncheon, or something of that character, and
had a truly Falstaffian air. In its nether extremity were inserted
two kegs, which seemed to answer all the purposes of legs. For arms
there dangled from the upper portion of the carcass two tolerably
long bottles, with the necks outward for hands. All the head that I
saw the monster possessed of was one of those Hessian canteens which
resemble a large snuff-box with a hole in the middle of the lid.
This canteen (with a funnel on its top, like a cavalier cap slouched
over the eyes) was set on edge upon the puncheon, with the hole
toward myself; and through this hole, which seemed puckered up like
the mouth of a very precise old maid, the creature was emitting
certain rumbling and grumbling noises which he evidently intended for
intelligible talk.

"I zay," said he, "you mos pe dronk as de pig, vor zit dare and
not zee me zit ere; and I zay, doo, you mos pe pigger vool as de
goose, vor to dispelief vat iz print in de print. 'Tiz de troof -